


The Shadows

by thepointoftheneedle



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Noir, Detective Noir, F/M, Guns, Minor Character Death, Smut, sci fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25203286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle
Summary: This fic is a noir detective story with Jughead as an LA private eye between the wars. Betty has a case for him.He found a shadowy booth and sat to wait for his mark to show. That was when, with a rustle of silk, she slid into his booth and into his life. “Mr Jones?” She said, her voice low and soft as a featherbed. She wore a picture hat, the brim casting a deep shadow over her eyes but she smelled good and her lips were as red and shiny as a showroom Cadillac. A lot of guys would have laid a hand on her leg or maybe more but Jughead knew she was no broad, this was a dame with class. He kept his hands to himself.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 82
Kudos: 74
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	1. Every Moment Points Toward The Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story and the chapter headings are taken from Sax Rohmer #1 by The Mountain Goats. A bit of the lyric is at the end.

It was late. Somehow it always seemed to be late. Jones couldn’t remember when he last saw the sunlight. It was funny. This was the Golden State and yet here he was always in darkness. He scoffed at the name. He wondered how long someone would have to polish his corner of the City of Angels to get it to shine. This was a piece of crap that wouldn’t ever be golden. He’d head to the nightclub, watch and listen, maybe catch a break in the case.

He drove over there, throwing his keys to the valet, Monroe, as he arrived. He tipped him but Monroe looked askance at the cash in his palm, disappointed. “Ah Mad Dog, I’m as upset about it as you are. You know if I had it, you’d have it, right? Hard times man.”

“I know Jughead. But hard times make tough guys, right?”

“Well, then you and I are two of the very toughest guys. Later fella.”

Inside he walked up to the bar. “The usual?” asked Antoinette. Jones nodded. They’d been a thing once. He remembered how he’d nailed her against the wall of his office like she was a picture but times change. Now she glanced over at the stage where her new lover, Cheryl Blossom, wearing a scarlet dress cut down to her navel and singing a torch song, was glaring at him. Toni smiled at her softly and licked her lips. He was only human, that was going to give him something to think about with his drink. She’d reached under the counter to fill his glass, two fingers of tea over ice. It looked like scotch but he’d been down the hard liquor road with his pops. It never ended well for Jones men, so he stuck to tea. The tough customers that he rolled with, that he needed for tip offs, didn’t trust a man drinking a sarsaparilla so that secret stayed between him and his barkeep.

He found a shadowy booth and sat to wait for his mark to show. That was when, with a rustle of silk, she slid into his booth and into his life. “Mr Jones?” She said, her voice low and soft as a featherbed. She wore a picture hat, the brim casting a deep shadow over her eyes but she smelled good and her lips were as red and shiny as a showroom Cadillac. A lot of guys would have laid a hand on her leg or maybe more but Jughead knew she was no broad, this was a dame with class. He kept his hands to himself.

“Who’s asking?” he replied.

“My name’s Cooper. Betty Cooper. I’m interested in hiring you. I’m told you’re discreet, that you get the job done.”

“Depends on the job. Talk and I’ll let you know if my interest is piqued.”

“It can’t happen that way. If I tell you what I need, I put myself in danger. I need to know that you work for me, that you won’t rat me out.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t take your money and screw you over anyway?”

“Toni says you talk tough but that you’re the only truly good man she knows. She says that if you take my case that you’ll work it until either it’s done or you are. She says I can trust you with my life. That’s what I need.”

“Being a good man in a city full of demons is a good way to get dead. I don’t want the honour thanks. I won’t promise to help you but I won’t squeal. You can tell me what you need.”

“I don’t have much choice. Have you heard of a scientist called DuPont, Professor DuPont?”

“Sure, that’s the egghead that’s gonna give us all cheap gas and weapons in case those angry little European guys get out of line, right?”

“Well so he says. It’s a little more complicated than that. So, he has a plant out in the San Fernando Valley. I need in, quietly and without anyone finding out. Once I’m in, your job is done. You leave and you never, never speak about it.”

“You want me to break you into a factory and leave you there. How are you gonna get out?”

“That’s my problem. I’ll pay you up front. You go home and forget that you ever met me.”

“What’s the wrinkle? Why do you need to get in?”

“I can’t tell you that. But DuPont would kill us both if he caught us, or worse.”

He blew out a sarcastic whistling breath through his teeth. “Worse than dead is a bad day in anyone’s book. OK, I’ll take a drive out there tomorrow and see what I can spy with my little eye. Gimme the address. You got a number?”

“No, I’ll come with you. Shall I come to your office? What time?”

“I don’t take dames on ride alongs. That isn’t how I work. I can’t be keeping you safe and doing my job. You stay home and do your needlepoint or whatnot and I’ll work out if what you want is even possible.”

She glared at him, “Oh God, this time is impossible. Right, Mr Jones, Jughead. Here’s the thing, DuPont and I are from the same place. I know him. If he has tricks or traps I’ll see them. You won’t. I can keep you safe, not the other way round. If I don’t go then we have no further business. And, if it makes you feel less worried about me, I can shoot, and I will.” She pulled aside her jacket to reveal a pearl handled .22 in a shoulder holster and the swell of her breast in her tight silk dress. Dangerous.

He had to admit that she impressed him. She was feisty and determined. He was also intrigued. When he’d seen the newspaper stories about DuPont he’d gotten one of his hunches. The man didn’t seem right somehow. He’d wondered if maybe he was a spy for Il Duce or his pal, the funny little German guy. He got the same vibe from all of them, men who’d sacrifice other people’s lives for their own aggrandisement. He knew about that, he’d grown up surrounded by folks who’d lost sons, husbands, fathers in the war in France, guys who had been lost for someone’s vanity, still under the soil at Cantigny or in Belleau Wood, shit Monroe’s pop was one of them. He thought maybe that was what was going on with Dupont. And even if it wasn’t wise he wanted to know more. He told her his terms. She didn’t demur or haggle, just brought out her pocket book and produced a pile of new crisp bills and paid him what he asked and then gave him fifty more. There was something strange about the way she handled the notes, almost like it was an uncommon experience for her, with an air of unfamiliarity. Still the money seemed good and he was in need of the cash flow, or at least his landlord was. He arranged to meet her at ten in the morning and she was gone, heels clacking across the floor, the seams of her stockings so straight and perfect that he wondered if she checked them with a ruler.

The next day he was putting the finishing touches to a report, typing painfully with one finger, holding his cigarette out of the way in the other hand to avoid ash falling on the paper. He saw her outside the door through the rippled glass, recognising her by something in the way she held herself. She looked through the glass, the semi circular gold lettering of his name forming a frame to her face. “Come in Miss Cooper. I’ll just be a moment.” She came through the door and he lost control of his typing finger entirely, smashing it against three of the keys. She seemed to have dressed for tennis not an automobile excursion. She wore a pale dress that ended just at the knee, made in some light material. It left most of her arms exposed. On her feet she wore white canvas tennis shoes. Instead of stockings she had short, white socks. The socks made him feel… a whole lot. “Damn it!” To punish him for his lechery the typewriter keys had jammed against each other. As she approached the desk he was reaching into the typewriter with inky fingers before resuming the staccato punching at the letters.

“Oh my God, we’ll be here ’til Tuesday. Here, let me,” She shoved at his side and took his place at the desk. “Just talk, I’ll type.” He grinned at her, his very own Girl Friday. He went and stood by the window, one arm resting against the frame as he looked out. “Paragraph. After following Mr Greene (with an e) to the apartment on Fifteenth…”

“Shit, why do the keys have to be so heavy? Sorry, go on, it’s just I’m not used to it being so hard.”

“Maybe you’ve been missing out then,” he replied with a raised eyebrow. 

“OK, enough with the suggestive remarks, ‘on Fifteenth…” Her typing was fast and accurate and the report was finished in fewer than ten minutes. He addressed the envelope and rummaged for a postage stamp while she massaged her fingers.

“Thanks, you saved us some time and some cursing there. You’re a secretary, I guess, to know how to type like that.”

She smiled a mysterious smile as she said, “No, where I come from everyone can type. Even little kids. We hardly talk anymore, just tap, tap, tap.”

“Well there’s something to be said for that. Too many folks running off at the mouth round here. Where are you from, like a religious community or something? Amish?”

“Yeah, something like that. So...San Fernando?”

“Yes, unless you want to play tennis instead,” he motioned towards her outfit.

“Oh, it’s the only thing I’ve found that is actually comfortable. If I need to walk or run I can’t be corseted and hobbled with high heels.” She wasn’t wearing a corset then. He couldn’t help wondering what she was wearing under that little dress. He didn’t usually think about a lady’s underthings unless she was showing them to him. She was making him some kind of monster. Focus Jones for Chrissakes. She was asking him a question. “Do you have an… automobile?”

“Of course milady. I’m the proud owner of a 1928 Oldsmobile Roadster. Well part owner with the bank, until the bank find out where I am. I won’t even make you ride on the rumble seat unless you complain about my driving. C’mon.”

She seemed impatient throughout the drive even though he sometimes coaxed the car up close to forty miles an hour. She had no idea how to read a map either. For a smart girl she seemed pretty clueless sometimes. Still within the hour they had made it to the vicinity of the plant. “Will anyone know you here?” he asked her and she said no while he rifled through his wallet for acceptable i.d. Eventually he found a press pass and tucked it into his hat band before grabbing his camera, getting out of the car and sauntering across the street. 

“Don’t I get one of those?” she asked, gesturing toward the pass.  
“What and tell them that we’re here to report on Spring fashion for security guards? I’ll tell ‘em you’re my stenographer. If we get in, just scribble on your notepad and look decorative. They’ll assume you’re my floozy.”

The conversation with the guard at the gate was brief and uncongenial. Jughead wouldn’t expect a card at Christmastime. He’d said he was there to do an interview for “Life Magazine” and could he go through to the plant’s reception to meet Professor DuPont. “Nothing on my sheet,” growled the meathead.

“”Oh that’s OK. I guess someone forgot to tell you. I’ll just go up and sort it out with his secretary.”

“No-one goes in unless they are on the sheet. You ain’t on the sheet.”

“Well, like I say, let me go up and make a phone call and we can straighten this out.”

“You ain’t on the sheet. Drive away.”

“But…”

“Drive away before I make it so you can’t drive away.”

“You’re being pretty unhelpful sir.”

“You don’t want to see me being unhelpful. Drive.”

They trailed back to the car. “Did you honestly think that was going to work?” she said, sounding disappointed in him.

“Guards’ schedule pinned to the cork board. Changeover at 10pm, 6am and 2pm. Two guys on duty from 7 until 9 in the morning. No roscoe on the guard but there’s a gun locker inside, keys left in the lock. Sloppy. Telephone line running up to the main building, only one cable, Runs along the ground at the back of the shelter, cuttable. Siren horn on the outside of the building, activated by a lever on the back wall. That worked just fine. Helped that he was looking down your dress half the time. You were right, you were useful.” She was staring at him. Had she thought he was an amateur?

“So hot,” she whispered. 

“Really? You need to get some water to drink or something? I was just thinking it was pretty cool today.” She looked confused but seemed to shake herself a little and smiled.

“I just run hot, and I guess I was a little nervous then. No problem. What now?”

“Well, it’s midday. Lunch?” Thirty minutes later they were in a booth in his favourite diner in Burbank. She seemed amused by the menu, like it was a novelty to be in a perfectly everyday restaurant. She ordered the tomato soup, which was strange since she’d been complaining about being hot earlier, while he did justice to a ground steak sandwich and French fried potatoes. As she drank her chocolate malt she said that the food was better than back home, fresher, the milk creamier. She seemed startled when he lit a cigarette, flicking his ash on his empty plate. He figured that her religious group probably didn’t permit tobacco or coffee or the like.

“Sorry, does this bother you?” he asked, gesturing with his smoke.

“No, but they’re bad for your health you know. You should really quit.”

“I don’t know where you get that from. These clear out my lungs; a good cough in the morning and I’m set for the day. And don’t start mothering me. I had a mother. I didn’t like it.”

“If she called you Jughead, I’m guessing that was mutual.”

“She didn’t. I go by Jughead because what she called me makes it sound like I’m rolling in dough and that’d be false advertising.”

“What is it then? Your real name?”

“That’s for me to know and you to wonder,” he replied, drawing a long drag on his cigarette. She dropped it.

“I’m assuming that you have some sort of plan Mr Jones.”

“Well the grey matter is working on it. I’d like to take a spin round as much of the perimeter of the plant as we can manage before we head back but I think that’s about all we can do today. You ready to go?” She insisted on getting the check and left a buck for a meal that couldn’t have cost more than fifty cents. Clearly she came from money. He began to regret his modest daily rate.

When they got back in the car the first thing she did was read his licence. “Forsythe Pendleton? Golly I get your point. But I like it. It’s kind of classy.”

“Feels like a wooden overcoat to me. Stick with Jones or Jughead, thanks.”

They were circumnavigating the factory when he noticed that they had a tail. It was possible that he’d been distracted by those goddamn socks when they left the diner and they’d been on them back then. He reproached himself, his libido had no place on a job. He hoped he wasn’t about to get her killed because her calves gave him the shivers.

The car was a Lincoln Roadster, pretty new. There was no way that the Olds would outrun it so he’d have to play it smart. Two goons, he knew his limits, he was useful with his fists but two of them and him with a girl that they could use as a bargaining chip didn’t look like a party he wanted to attend. “So Cooper, you say you can shoot. Is that a bluff? You willing to stake my life on it?”

“I don’t bluff Jones. I passed the FBI handgun training programme with honours, top of the class.”

“You a G-Man Cooper? Who the hell are you? Scratch that, we don’t have time. We’re being followed, here’s the plan.”

He waited until the Lincoln was pressing its grill against the tail of the Olds before he stuck his arm out and waved it up and down to show that he was slowing. He pulled over and the goons jumped out and one of them ran to his door. “Hey fellas. Lovely day for it. How can I be of assistance?” 

“Who are you? Why are you doing here?”

She started to cry quietly next to him, slouched against the passenger door. “Oh shut up you doxy or it’ll be the creep joint for you,” he yelled harshly. The first hatchet man dragged him out of the car as he flinched and grovelled. “Hey guys, now let’s be friendly and discuss this like gentlemen. I ain’t got nothing against you. I’m just bringing Jenny here out on a nice drive so she can lift her skirts for me in the fresh air. You want a turn? Be my guest. I don’t mind.” Apparently the lunk was a gentleman because that made him mad and he pulled back his fist and connected with Jug’s eye with a nasty wet thud. Jug giggled and knelt in the dirt. The other guy, sensing blood in the water came round from the passenger side and went in for a kick to his stomach. That smarted just a little. Anytime you feel like it girlie, he thought and then there was a shot and the kicking man was down, a rosette of blood staining his shoulder. If she meant it, it was nicely placed. Painful but not fatal, gun arm to prevent his drawing a weapon. The first guy was reaching inside his jacket but he was too slow, another shot, this one through the meat of his thigh, close enough to the jewellery box that he bent double in the dirt. She came forward and pushed him over with the toe of her canvas shoe and reached down to retrieve his gun. Jughead shook off the pain in his gut and took the gun from the other guy. “Now fellas, tell me who sent you after us to spoil our date. Someone from the plant?”

“Screw you,” muttered the bruno, holding his shoulder.

“You want I should let the dish shoot you again? Did you like it that much? Honey, he wants another one.” She took up a theatrical shooter’s stance, feet apart, both hands on the gun. 

“In the face, baby?” she asked innocently. He liked her style.

“OK, OK. Don’t shoot. It was DuPont who sent us out. He said you’d been sneaking around and we should watch in case you came back, he didn’t say why.”

“And what were you supposed to do with us?”

“Run you off the road. Make it look like an accident. He said that if the girl was a blonde we should bring her in, didn’t matter if she was alive or not. I guess he likes blondes. An ankle’s an ankle.”

They left the two punks by the side of the road and motored back into town. As he drove he laid down the law. “Cooper, you need to give me the dope on this case. Are you really a fed? What’s going on? I can’t help you if you keep me in the dark.”

She looked at him, studying him like he was a statue in a museum. Eventually she said, “I don’t think you’d believe me Jughead. If I tell you any of it I put you in so much more danger. From both sides of the law. It’d be better not to know.”

“I’ve had a whole lot of advice in my time Cooper and I’ve ignored pretty much all of it. I’m not about to change now. Spill it.”

“Ok, I’ll tell you what I can. Let’s go to my place, I could do with a change of clothes. That guy bled on me.”

“Careless of him. You should send him the cleaner’s bill.”

Her bolthole was on Orchid Avenue, one of those quieter streets running uphill just off Hollywood Boulevard. Expensive accommodations. He looked round while she went and changed. The apartment was sparsely furnished, utilitarian. She didn’t seem to have made any effort to make it homey, no lace doilies, no vases of flowers.

She emerged from the bedroom in a pair of pants and a loose shirt. It was odd but he liked it. He wasn’t sure what that said about him. She gestured him towards a chair and held out an ice pack for his eye. “Here, it’ll probably bruise though. Drink?”

“I’d take coffee if you have it.”

“I thought gumshoes were hard drinkers,” she observed, her eyebrow raised.

“Rumours put about by coppers to attack our good name.”

“You guys don’t have a good name, most of you seem to be sleazy hotel corridor lurkers.”

“See, it’s working,” he smiled, enjoying the back and forth. She made coffee, like she did almost everything, in an unusual way, pouring the water over the grounds through a piece of cloth instead of putting them in the pot. It was hot and wet and served its purpose even if he usually liked his coffee boiled til it stood on its own two feet. They sat with their coffee cups in some uncomfortable wing chairs and he waited for her to speak.

“DuPont is a scientist. He’s a genius. He’s expecting a war, I can’t tell you much about that but he’s right to expect it. He’s developing a weapon that will kill millions of innocent people. He absolutely has to be stopped.”

“And to stop this guy, the forces of law and order have dispatched a girl in tennis shoes rather than a unit of crack troops because…”

“Well, that’s kind of the part I can’t tell you. It’s vital that as few people as possible know about it. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and so I was already in it up to my neck. It’s my job, ours if you choose to help me.” She looked into his eyes, a ghost of a smile on her lips, “and I’m hoping you’ll help me.” She stood and came over to him, taking a seat in his lap. She looked at him for a moment and then leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips.

“What was that for?” he asked, amused.

“I’ve been wondering if I’d like it,” she replied, her voice soft, her eyes half closed.

“What’s the decision?” If she wanted to distract him he was prepared to indulge her for a moment.

"I don’t know yet,” she replied and kissed him again. This time he brought a hand behind her head and leaned her backwards over his knee, kissing her hard like a dame as beautiful as her deserved to be kissed. Then he took his lips from hers and brought her upright with an arm behind her back. He was pleased to see that she looked a little unfocused. “It’s even better when you help,” she murmured.

“Oh baby, you’re no grifter are you? Do you really think that you can string me along and I won’t see the holes in your story because you’ve got me all cow eyed for you?”

She rolled her eyes and stood up, walking over to the window. “It was worth a try. And I liked it. I’d like some more.”

He decided to try to work round to the heart of the matter by following another morsel in the trail of breadcrumbs. “How do you know Toni? You said she told you to talk to me.”

“I know her through Cheryl. Miss Blossom has done some work for my employers in the past so I had a letter of introduction to give to her when I …got into town. She helped me find this place and introduced me to Toni. They were very kind to me. I was a little discombobulated for a while when I first arrived.”

“And who exactly are your employers? Is it the government? Is it someone else’s government? Because you’re a doll but if you’re working for the Spanish guy…what’s he called… Franco? Or some other fascist dictator then I can’t be in that with you no matter how pretty you bat your eyelashes.”

“I’m an American. My work is for the American people. I’m not loyal to any other nation. That’s all I can say about that. You just have to decide if you trust me or not.”

“I trust you about as far as I can spit you but I do like the way you bat those lashes so if you’re in it, I’ll be in it with you and let you string me along. But be sure of something. I won’t hurt some innocent fella just because some tomato tells me that’s what she wants. I’m pretty much always on the side of the little guy who's doing his best and that’s just the way I’m built. I’m not your mark and I’m not your muscle. Got it?”

“Got it. Now what are we going to do about the hood that’s standing outside my window, packing a heater and watching this place?”


	2. An Agent Crests the Shadows

Jug switched off the light and joined her near the window, standing off to the side so he wouldn’t be spotted. The daylight was seeping away and, as they watched, the incandescent bulb of the street lamp, under which the lurking figure stood, lit up. He glanced up at it, the brim of his homburg no longer hiding his face, and that was all she needed to recognise him. She gasped and reeled back from the window. “Bret,” she whispered.

“Talk to me, sweetheart. Who are we dealing with?” Jughead didn’t like seeing her so discomfited. It made him nervous.

“Bret Weston Wallis. He was a colleague. We trained together.”

“A friend?”

“Not really, a rival I guess. When it came time to pick a side he and I chose different teams. I saw him with DuPont but I had no idea he’d come after me. It’s more his style to have someone else do his dirty work. If he gets the chance he’ll kill me without a second thought. But he must be able to get into DuPont’s plant. He could be useful.”

“You’re saying that we shouldn’t knock him off until we’ve given him the third degree?”

“Well, it’d be great if we could get him under control and I could take him in. He might give us the rap on DuPont.” He was glad to hear that, he would trust her less if she was happy to bump off an acquaintance without compunction. 

“Where’s your horn?” he asked. She looked confused so he clarified the request, “Telephone?” and she gestured towards the kitchen. He dialled quickly and within a minute was connected to Toni at the bar. “Can you put Monroe on the line Toni? It’s for Betty. We’re in a fix.” He waited a few moments for Toni to hustle out to the valet station but soon he heard Mad Dog’s voice. “Jughead, what do you need brother?”

“Can you take off for twenty minutes? I need your help. I’m just up the Boulevard a ways.”

“Sure, I’m overdue a break. The kid can cover me. Tell me.”

Two of the many good things about Monroe “Mad Dog” Moore were that not only had he been a prize fighter but that the fact was obvious to anyone who glanced at him. He was tall and broad and looked like he’d been carved out of oak he was so strong and solid. He had done odd jobs for Jug in the past where both muscle and restraint were called for and Jughead respected the hell out of him. When Jughead emerged from the apartment building and walked up to the man under the streetlight with a friendly wave and a “Well hello there Bret,” he had every confidence that Monroe, apparently an innocent passerby, would reach out and take the arm that was reaching inside Bret’s overcoat. He would prevent him from drawing out his weapon without snapping the arm like a twig as he as perfectly capable of doing. “So Bret, a mutual friend would love to invite you up for a chat. Let our buddy here help you, those stairs can be tricky. We wouldn’t want you to trip and fall. You’d likely break your neck.”

Monroe had Bret’s arm twisted behind his back as they mounted the stairs in silence. Jughead used the bracelets that he kept in the glove box of the Oldsmobile once they got back into the apartment. “You don’t want him tenderised a little Jug?” asked the big man as they forced him back onto the couch and Betty produced the cords that tied back her drapes to secure his ankles. 

“I’m sure we won’t need to cut up rough but thanks pal. Miss Cooper, can you pay our friend for his time and shoe leather? I’ll be seeing you soon buddy.”

“Not if I see you first… boy,” yelled Bret and Betty pulled back a hand and slapped him hard across the face. 

“You show some respect Bret. You know better than that, you racist piece of shit.”

“Don’t worry Miss. I hear worse than that before I’ve had my morning coffee,” said Monroe and Betty turned to him with tears welling in her eyes.

“I’m sure you do, Sir. I’m so sorry for the trouble. Thank you for your help. What do I owe you?”

He stayed in the living room with Bret while Betty showed Mad Dog out. He was a little perturbed by the giggling he heard at the door. Was she flirting? He crushed down his jealousy. Monroe was a good man, any girl would be inclined to flirt with him. Bret was staring at the floor, his face clouded with anger and resentment. “Now then my fine fella. Why don’t you start telling me all about DuPont and his plan?”

“Screw you. I’ve got nothing to say to the hired help. You don’t even have a clue what this is all about do you?”

“Ah Bret let’s be civil. I want you to consider yourself our guest. We’ll have a couple of drinks. But then I’m gonna knock your teeth out unless you sing like a canary.”

When Betty reappeared Bret snarled at her, “You’re on the wrong side of history Cooper. In two days it’ll all be underway and soon you’ll never even have existed. The future will be purged of you and all the others who lack the courage to do what has to be done. A new age is coming. It’s Skynet baby.”

“Umm, you might be confused dude, but if I’m going down in the tsunami of annihilation then you’re coming down too. No millennials left standing,” she replied. Jughead looked from one to the other bewildered by half the words they were using but gathering the message that this was an even bigger and stranger threat than the one he had been imagining. He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. He needed to know what he was dealing with here. She shrugged and pointed toward the bedroom.

As she closed the door behind them she smiled at him. He wasn’t going to be bought that cheap. “Look Miss Cooper, I didn’t believe you to begin with but I believed your cash. You paid me more than if this job was on the level, and enough more to make it all right. It’s not alright now. I need the truth.”

“Alright I may not have been entirely frank but it’s hard to explain and I don’t want to freak you out. Oh, sorry, talking to him has made all my idioms get scrambled. OK, I think that you’ll find the truth disturbing and hard to reconcile with your world view. If you can just let it slide you’ll be happier in the long run.” He was starting to protest when there was a thud from the living room, and Jug turned on his heel to rush in there. Bret was on the floor, the hem of his pant leg was ripped open, his eyes were fixed and staring and he was foaming a little at the mouth. “Poison,” she muttered.

“Well isn’t that the last thing you’d think he’d do?” Jug quipped, wondering how he’d dispose of the body now he’d sent Monroe back to the club.

The next day he was resting his eyes in the office when she arrived. A day like he’d had can take its toll on a man’s vim and vigour on the morrow. He’d crawled into his bed at three fifteen. When he dragged himself back out of it it was almost noon. He’d sat on the edge of the tub and given himself a stern word or two. “Ok Jones,” he’d said, “You’re a tough guy. There’s perhaps a cracked rib or two and that’s a shiner coming in, the girl’s playing you like a cheap violin and you spent half the night manhandling a corpse off the Lido Pier. Now let’s see you do something really tough, like brushing your teeth.” He’d dragged himself to the office and now, hearing the door click, he opened one eye without bringing his head up off the desk. 

“Well don’t you look like you should have been thrown in the ocean too?” she observed unkindly.

“Thanks missy. I’ll stay up all night getting rid of evidence for you again.”

“I am grateful Jughead. Shall I show you how much?”

“Tempting as that is, it’s time for you to level with me. Let’s quit the half truths and distraction. I’m no stool pigeon and I won’t go to the big house for you. Talk.”

She made a resigned grimace and came and sat on the desk. Her pretty knees were right next to him. He could put a hand on one right now, maybe even stand between them while he kissed her, pushed her back onto the desk. Christ, she was sneaky. He pushed his chair back from the desk, put his feet up on it and lit a cigarette in a display of insouciance that he didn’t feel. She shrugged and began to talk.

“So I was straight with you but I left some things out. I am Betty Cooper, I was born in upstate New York twenty six years ago. My date of birth is June 22 1994.”

“Wait, what?”

“Well that’s the bit I thought you’d have some trouble with. Just listen and I’ll try to explain.” Jughead’s mind was racing. All this time he’d thought maybe she was a spy, possibly making a monkey of him. Turned out she was an escapee from the booby hatch. 1994 for Chrissakes. “After college I was recruited by a kind of international investigation agency. I went through training with the FBI and the CIA. Our remit is to monitor the development of new technologies, new inventions, to make sure that no one is building anything really dangerous, or if they are, that we know how to shut it down.”

“Like some guy builds a ray gun or something?”

“So much worse. In nine years time the US government will build a bomb so powerful that when it drops on a Japanese city it flattens it to the ground, it kills thirty percent of the civilian population outright, many more die from the after effects because the bomb leaves a sickness behind it. Little kids in the area, those who survive, pass the sickness on to their own children years later. Everything that grows there is poisoned for generations. Three days later the government does it again. I’m not going to talk about whether that was right or wrong but just imagine if a weapon like that got onto the open market, the fear, the devastation. And for me, in my time line, those blasts happened not far off a century ago. Weapons are much more powerful now, then, I mean…”

She seemed to have been listening to too many of those radio plays with all the beeping spaceships. Still he needed to listen to find exactly what kind of crazy he was dealing with here. “So I guess you all ride around in flying cars and have robot butlers, the whole nine yards?”

“No, not exactly. Things in the future are complicated. We have a lot of problems, many of them got started right here, in your time. We need you folks to stop driving around, stop pumping oil out of the ground, stop flying in aeroplanes just for fun, stop killing people because their ancestors came from a different bit of the world from yours…lots of things really. So a brilliant scientist, a physicist, figured, what if he could go back, give people in the past free fuel that doesn’t damage the future, bring them vaccines for sicknesses that kill millions, help them to understand how to protect the planet that we live on? So he developed a way to do that. Now if you need to understand the science we’ll have to go through a crash course in quantum physics, entanglement and multiverse theory. Or you could take my word for it.”

“Yeah, I skipped the pages on quantum physics in my “How to be a Detective in Ten Easy Lessons” correspondence course. We’ll take it as read.”

“OK the scientist tried philanthropy and beneficence first, giving away the secret of cleaner fuel. But it didn’t work. The oil barons didn’t want him making power cheap and plentiful, the drugs companies got scared about the medicines they wouldn’t sell. The government, mainly those guys and the guys they play golf with, insisted on tests that would delay his technologies reaching the people for decades. Nothing he did seemed to change the timeline more than a tiny degree. It seems like we’re on a set of street car tracks that we can’t get off. He decided that more radical steps were needed. Sodom and Gommorah radical. If you can’t shift the streetcar tracks then you have to derail the whole thing. What if the bombs that hit Japan don’t just blow those two cities to kingdom come, what if they destroy the civilisation entirely? Take the whole world back to the middle ages and try again. He thought that might be the only way to save humanity. There’s a storm coming Jughead. A terrible war that makes the last one look like a nasty spat in a bar. And if both sides have weapons much worse that those that I told you about, and have them when that storm hits, then millions, maybe billions of people will die.”

“The scientist is Dupont right? You need to get in there to save the world?”

“Right. I need to destroy his device, stop him from messing with the timeline any more than he has. Our problems in the future are ours to solve, we can’t kill all those innocent people instead of taking responsibility for ourselves.”

He felt like he’d heard enough fiction for one day. “OK, so this is a decent plot for a radio play. What are you trying to pull?”

“I knew you wouldn’t buy it. There’s a race meet at Bay Meadows in San Mateo today. Will it be on the radio?” It seemed like a pretty dramatic change of tack but he liked the nags well enough so they went to his apartment to listen to the races. The announcer began to call out the runners and riders in the third and she said “Ralph Neves” only to have the announcer echo her a moment later. She looked over and said, “Neves will fall on the back stretch. The track doctor will come and pronounce him dead.” Jug was too bamboozled to do anything but listen to the bangtails running. Just as she said, on the back stretch the announcer yelled…”and Neves is down. He’s not moving. Oh my, this looks like a bad fall, a very bad fall. There’s an ambulance on the way. I see the track doctor going out to Neves.” The race ended and then the radio announcer came back over the airwaves to inform listeners in a sombre voice that Neves had been pronounced dead by the track doctor. He spoke about his wins at previous meets, his courageous riding, how he was popular with the other jockeys and the owners. Jughead stared at Betty. She grinned at him. 

“Don’t worry, he’s fine. The doc’ll give him a shot of adrenaline. He’ll be back at the track wanting to ride before the day’s over. They won’t let him till tomorrow. He’ll ride four winners. The San Francisco Examiner headline tomorrow will be "Neves, Called Dead in Fall, Denies It.” Jug was trying to work out how she could have made this happen. It would certainly be an elaborate and wide reaching hoax. “Tomorrow Mussolini will give a speech announcing the annexation of Ethiopia and the start of a new Roman Empire. He’ll ask the crowd “Are you worthy of it? They’ll scream ‘Yes.’ It’s started Jug.”

“I have no idea how you’ve done this. I’d like to believe you because the other option is that you’ve gone to a whole lot of trouble to drive me crazy. What do you want from me?”

“Same as from the start. I need to get into that plant and I need to do it before Dupont meets Oppenheimer.”

“Who the hell is Oppenheimer?”

“He’s a physicist from Berkeley. He’s going to build the bomb I told you about. Dupont is going to meet him, talk to him about it, give him a few pointers to make it a thousand times more destructive. He doesn’t need much of a push, he’s a genius. Once that’s in progress we’ll be in a tight fix.”

“But, if you had to, couldn’t you just ice this Oppenharmer?”

“Oppenheimer. And no, I don’t think so. You see the bomb he builds ends the war but the other side aren’t too far behind him. So we take out Oppenheimer, the war carries on, the other side get their ducks in a row and we’re enslaved to a global fascist empire. Not good.” Jug felt bewildered by the story so he turned his attention back to the immediate problem they faced.

“Ok, I think I have a play to get into the place. I made some calls this morning but we’ll need to wait until dark.”

“Oh Jug, whatever shall we do until then?” she asked in a singsong voice and raised an eyebrow. He took her in his arms and showed her. He kissed her until her lips were swollen and red, taken aback a little when her tongue snaked into his mouth and ran along his lips. He liked it just fine but he’d had her pegged as a nice girl. Nice girls would sometimes let you but they didn’t get too involved themselves which was why he’d always liked bad girls, often to his cost. She was different. Since she was kissing him with everything she had, he joined in and soon he was pretty excited about it. That was when she reached down and stroked him though the fabric of his pants and he about passed out with shock. Surely she wasn’t planning to let things go that far? She must have sensed his surprise because she pulled back and looked into his eyes. “I’m sorry Jug. It’s fine if you don’t want to. I like you a lot. I’m pretty sure that if everything works as it should I’ll never see you again after tonight but we can just leave it at this if that’s what you want.”

“No, God no, I want you too but this is as star-crossed as lovers get, isn’t it?”

“It’s OK Jug. We can have this and then, tonight, we’ll go our separate ways or times or whatever. Unless you have moral principles about it or something. I mean, I’m not going to marry you and stay here to live through the forties.”

“No, it’s not that. I’ve had women before Betty, I just don’t want to promise you more than we can have. And what’s going to be wrong with the forties?”

“Oh Jug, it’s not my first time either and I’m not asking for promises. Now kiss me again, it was just getting interesting.”

He put his hand behind her head and kissed her like she ought to be kissed. She made little sounds to let him know he was on the right track and he got up the nerve to put his hand on her bosom. She arched her back towards his hand and pulled at the knot of his necktie, sliding it loose and then undone. “Barely anyone wears these where I’m from. It’s a shame. I can imagine it’d be useful for lots of things,” she whispered and he began to feel a little out of his depth with her. He decided to regain the initiative so he slid a hand up her leg, under her dress. She was wearing stockings today and his hand found the strap of her garter belt and snapped it lightly. She gasped and pulled up her knee to rest on his hip, pushing herself against him until he almost lost his mind. “The stockings are long gone too I’m afraid. I begin to see their appeal.”

“Well I’d certainly like to see them,” Jug muttered against her neck where he was placing hot kisses, sucking gently against her skin.

“Easy to arrange,” she said with a smile and took a step back and pulled up her dress, over her head and off. She was like a Vargas pin up girl out of Esquire, perfect skin, gorgeous figure, legs that made his heart race. He was going to miss her if she turned out not to be crazy. She was at his shirt buttons now so he shrugged off his jacket and pulled down his suspenders to hang at his hips. She stood back a little when she was through with the buttons, watching him with those bright, intelligent green eyes. He pulled out his shirt tails and slipped it off his shoulders and she grinned. “Well, that’s a relief. I wondered if the shape was all tailoring but it isn’t at all. You’re beautiful. Oh I forgot, Toni told me that! “Say what you like about Jones,” she said, “but he’s a piece of beef.’”

“Oh I’m ground beef, I think this rib might be busted. Anyway I thought yesterday that your taste was more to the prize steer that is Mad Dog Moore.”

“He’s gorgeous but actually he was singing your praises in the hallway yesterday. He said, ‘Jughead’s a fine man, Miss. You treat him right, you hear?’ So I’m taking him at his word. I’m planning to treat you right.” Clearly she was, because she began to place soft butterfly kisses over the bruises on his torso from the goon’s kick yesterday. She was gentle and tender and when she ran her cool fingers down his chest to his waist he began to tremble. He took her hand and led her into the bedroom and, with a hand behind her back, laid her on his bed. He was used to being the one in charge in these situations but that wasn’t her style clearly. Her fingers were at the button of his pants, on a mission. He helped her out by taking off his shoes and socks before stepping out of his pants and laying them across a chair. He wanted to kiss her, take her breast in his mouth, touch her everywhere. He felt a little ashamed that he wanted her to take him in her mouth like a girl had done once in New Orleans when he was on a case and which he suspected might have been illegal. 

“I feel a little at a loss with you Betty. Like a high school kid. You might have to help me out,” he said, running a cautious finger across her breast, over the silk of her brassiere. 

“I know. I’m not sure what you’re expecting. Does sex change, are there fashions? Is it missionary position and no foreplay in this era? Because that isn’t going to fly with me.”

“The what position?”

“Ok…language barrier. Well I’d like you to kiss me and touch me for a while before anything else happens. Touch me with your fingers, your tongue if you want to… Is that OK?” He nodded. “I’d like to touch you, stroke you, kiss you all over, I’d like to use my mouth if you’d like that,” he was gasping now, her words making him twitch with longing, to salivate at the thought of it. He reached behind her and unfastened the lace over her breasts and fell upon her, kissing her, bringing her nipple into his mouth, dragging his tongue across it and then his teeth, nipping against her gently. She started to moan in her throat and he reached down and put the flat of his hand over her sex, pushing against her. He pushed further down with his long fingers, a little uncertain. She opened her legs for him and he breathed out, relieved that she seemed eager. He stroked her over the satin and she writhed a little, he dragged his fingers again and she made a moaning sound. She sat up and looked into his eyes as she unclipped her stockings and rolled them down, watching him watching her. Then she was unhooking the garter belt, taking off her panties, spreading herself naked before him. He breathed hard, trying to get some self control back and went back to her with his fingers. There was something he was missing, she was squirming, wanting something he wasn’t supplying and she was letting him know it. 

“Show me,” he whispered, “show me what you want.” She grabbed his hand and brought it to herself, taking his finger between hers and using it to stroke herself just above where he had been touching her. There was a bump there and when he pressed against it she gasped and moaned and quivered. It was like a magic trick, he needed to see, he positioned himself lower and she thrust upwards with her hips. 

“Your mouth, your tongue there,” she whined. “Only if you want to. You don’t have to.” If this was the effect that his rough, calloused fingers could have then he really wanted to. He dipped his head and licked where she had shown him and she cried out. He could taste her, it was the most unbelievable sensation, he felt depraved and he loved it. It was so good it was probably illegal in all the states of the union. He worked with his tongue and his lips and she began to pant, breathing out in shuddering bursts, he sucked gently and she wailed, he thrust one of his fingers inside her and she began to pant out his name over and over again. He couldn’t stop smiling as she moaned thrusting up with her hips. He reached up and took one of her nipples in between his fingers and squeezed, enough to be felt, as he continued to pleasure her with his mouth and soon she was rolling backwards, her back arching and yelling so he worried about the neighbours. It was splendid. He realised how badly he had let down the other women he had been with. He hadn’t entirely believed that they could experience what she clearly just had. He’d thought that if he hadn’t hurt them and he was affectionate to them afterwards that that was all that they could expect.

She calmed a little and looked at him through half closed, lust clouded eyes. “Was that the first time…have you ever…?”

“No, never but you taught me a lot. I liked it. So much. Was it alright?”

“Oh it was wonderful. Come here and lie down. I’d like to make you feel good too. Just lay there, you don’t have to do anything at all.”

She began by kissing his neck and his chest, then running her tongue down his belly, sometimes letting him feel her teeth dragging against his flesh, teasing him deliciously. He longed for her to put her mouth on him but he daren’t ask her. She hooked her thumbs under the waistband of his underwear and tugged. He was embarrassed about his arousal but she smiled as she threw aside the last of his clothing. She hitched a leg across his thighs, took him in her hand and stroked him gently, long, lazy strokes that made him even harder. She started to deepen the strokes, working him more intensely and he gasped a little and thrust up with his hips. Then she dipped her head and took him in her mouth, pressing herself against his thigh as she did it. He felt his head roll back at the sensation. She was sucking in her cheeks and taking him into her mouth so much deeper than seemed possible. It made him groan, transported by the feeling. She was still stroking with her hand as she licked and sucked him and he felt himself caught in a whirlpool of pleasure. He gave himself over to it. She pressed herself against his thigh, her centre wet with arousal. This was how it should be, not the rushed, apologetic fumbling he’d experienced before, this complete sharing of need and fulfilment. He became aware that he needed to push her away or it would happen inside her mouth. He pushed at her shoulder to warn her, he simply had no words. She continued on her mission, he didn’t know what to do and then he was groaning out his release, aware that it was happening while her mouth was still on him. To his amazement she still didn’t pull away, he saw her throat move as she swallowed, she swallowed and then smiled at him as she saw his stunned expression. “Is that not what girls do in the thirties?”

“Girls really don’t do any of that, more’s the pity,” he replied and held her close, kissing her hair and stroking her. “It was marvellous. Thank you so much.”

Soon she was returning his kisses, running her fingers up and down his back and entwining them in his hair. To his surprise his body began to respond to her again and she was reaching down to stroke him. “We need a condom. I can’t get knocked up sixty years before I’m born, the genealogy would be a nightmare.”

“Rubbers? In the nightstand,” he murmured. 

“Forgive me, I’m going with my supply. I trust twenty first century manufacture more.”

“Well you seem to be enjoying the antique that you want to put it on,” he muttered, as she retrieved her purse from the living room and then gasped as her hand closed around him to roll it over him. He began to sit up to move between her legs but she pushed him back. “Hey, relax. You might learn something else.”

She moved over him, a knee at either side of his hips and held him so that she could sink down onto him. The sensation of her all around him, everywhere, almost broke him. She began to move against him, arching her back. He saw the appeal of this position, the view was spectacular. He reached up to touch her, stroking her and then sitting up to lick and kiss her breasts, her neck. She began to whimper. Her pleasure was the most enticing sight he could imagine. She leaned against his chest and bent her head to kiss and drag her teeth against his shoulder. Soon her movements became jerky and uncoordinated and he grabbed her by her hips and started to move her over himself, his fingers pressing into her skin. She seemed to enjoy that so he held her even tighter, moving her more firmly and with purpose, searching for his own pleasure within her body. “Oh my God, oh Jughead, yes,” she moaned as he controlled her motion. He began to thrust up into her, his hips snapping against her hard and then he saw her whole body quiver as she reached the summit of her passion. She moaned again and again as he entered her and then he was dying inside her, spasm after spasm, thrust after thrust until he collapsed back on the bed, panting and sweating.

Some time later she rolled over to look at him. “Not bad for an old guy. What year were you born?”

“1908. Springfield, Illinois.”

“So you’re eighty six when I’m born. You’ll be… one hundred and twelve when I get back.”

“Yeah, maybe don’t pay a visit to the old folks home and ask for a repeat show. I think you’ll kill me, although what a way to go.”

“Seriously though, if things were different, I think this could be something.”

“It is something Betty. You may well have ruined me for other girls.”

“Same for me. You’re even a threat to some of the boys.” He looked at her nonplussed for a moment and then laughed. “Full of surprises Miss Cooper.”

They lay together as he ran his fingers through her hair and talked her through the plan. She tried to test him with hypotheticals until they were satisfied that they had anticipated most of the pitfalls. He went to the Chinese restaurant on the corner and brought back chow mein and almond chicken and far too much fried rice and barbecue pork. When he got back she was putting something into an envelope but he was too preoccupied with food to ask what it was. They’d just finished up when Cheryl and Toni arrived in Cheryl’s automobile, ready for the night’s festivities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the smut in this chapter  
> Jug's right to be worried. What the girl did in Louisiana WAS illegal...as far as I can tell it still is although the statute is (currently) unenforceable.  
> Also he doesn't know the term "missionary position" because it comes from Kinsey and only becomes common parlance in the sixties. He also has some pretty common misconceptions and areas of ignorance from his era. And did you know that some women who didn't orgasm through penetration had their clitorises surgically re-sited so that they would be able to...because that's the easiest way to solve that non problem...NOT. (The things I learn writing smut.)


	3. And I Am Coming Home To You If It's The Last Thing That I Do

Less than an hour later Jug and Betty were crouching by the side of the road near DuPont’s plant while Cheryl and Toni drove slowly past in Cheryl’s cherry red Chrysler. The Oldsmobile was out of sight down the road where they had pulled over to deflate the Chrysler’s offside tire. Opposite the guard’s hut Cheryl came to a halt and got out. She had undone three buttons on her blouse and composed her face into a mask of helpless but beautiful misery. Now she began to sob prettily. Toni was crouched inside the passenger footwell, her tiny frame able to stay entirely hidden there. The guard was looking over at Cheryl, who with a subtle movement of her back was somehow able to display her décolletage to even greater effect. “Miss, are you OK?”

“No. I have a flat and I just don’t know what to do. I’m stuck out here and my grandmother is sick so I have to get home to take care of her. You couldn’t help me, could you? I’d be so very grateful. Ooh my buttons keep popping open. Oh dear me.”

“Well I’m not supposed to leave my post,” the guard muttered and Cheryl brought her thumb up to her lips and looked at him through fluttering eyelashes. 

Betty hissed through her teeth, “He’s not going to bite.”

“Oh he’s going to bite. He’s a rube. He just wants her to be good and needy,” Jug replied with a grin just as the guard put down his Thermos and shrugged off his jacket.

“I can change a tire if you’ll make it worth my while, Missy,” he said as he sauntered across the road to where Cheryl stood in the shadows, equidistant between two street lamps. Toni’s voice was low but they just made out the threat in her words as she ordered him to get into the driver’s seat. They glimpsed the muzzle of the gun she held to his belly as Cheryl got into the back seat and the boiler pulled down the road. Now Betty and Jug just had to wait.

He asked the question that had been preying on his mind since he had finally decided to accept her story. “Why the hell is this all left to you Betty? Not that you aren’t a capable number but it’s a lot for just one kitten.”

She made herself a little more comfortable, sitting down on a rock that flanked the asphalt. “I was on the case from the start. No-one at the agency was buying that DuPont was anything other than a kook but I could tell that whatever he was working on was dangerous. My boss let me go undercover, working in the plant as a cleaner, since I was so interested in it. Anyway I’d found out that DuPont had recruited a team of historians to learn everything they could about California in May 1936. I had to go on several very trying dates with guys wearing far too much corduroy to get that information. I did my own research about it in the agency databases…like a library, kind of,” she elaborated when he looked confused. “I found out the names of covert CIA agents like Cheryl and tried to memorise all I could about the history of this particular month.”

“Like the ponies, which jockeys fall and get scratched at races in San Mateo on any given Friday,” he grinned.

“Exactly. It was lucky I’d read about the racing. I needed dough when I got here so Toni introduced me to a bookie. I’m a remarkably lucky gambler. He stopped taking my bets eventually. Anyway when I learned that Oppenheimer was at Berkeley I got a very bad feeling and started to put it all together. I was sneaking around the plant trying to collect evidence when DuPont caught me, made me as an agent. I guess that Bret was responsible for that. I got caught and it was either a bullet or switch on the vortex, dive through and try to work it out from this end. I shouldn’t be here at all, I’m on my own recognisance. I’m hoping that I’ll have back up though. I’ve written a letter to my boss via a firm of attorneys that will still be in business in 2020. He will have got it the day I came back here. Cheryl’s going to post it when she gets into to town tonight if the scheme seems to be working. The tenses here are very confusing.”

“So you were here at the plant before, in the future? I see what you mean about the grammar by the way.”

“Yeah, I came through but I didn’t have any way to destroy it. I snuck out and had to hitch a ride into LA. I wrote my own bona fides to give to Cheryl and she helped me from there.”

“And what’s your plan to take DuPont down? Tell me you have a plan.”

“All being well, my boss, Charles, will be on the other side when I get in there. I’m trusting them to believe me. I hope they will have taken the plant by force in 2020 and when I get to the other side they’ll be waiting to help me with DuPont. If not I’ll be in trouble.”

Jughead nodded but he was concerned. He didn’t much like plans that relied on someone else doing their job.

Ten minutes later the car was back, Cheryl slowed down and threw a pile of clothes out of the window to a waiting Jughead. 

“He’s in the ditch down there, hogtied. I left him his wedding ring, the creep. You owe me, hobo. I vowed never to see another man in his skivvies as long as I lived.”

“Thank you Miss Blossom. We’re much obliged to you.” Jug said, holding up the pants against his waist to check they’d fit.

“Thanks Cheryl. Don’t forget the letter will you?” Betty said in a low voice. Cheryl harrumphed at the idea that she’d forget anything and Toni grinned at them as they pulled away. Jug quickly undressed to his vest and underpants under the frankly lecherous gaze of his inamorata and pulled on the guard’s uniform. The pants were, comically, about three inches too short but he guessed that no-one except her was going to be ogling his ankles. He kissed her breathless but when she hooked her leg around his hips he pulled back. “Control yourself Cooper,” he whispered, his own voice breaking with passion. He loved how she wanted him and how she showed it. He tore himself away to take up his post in the shelter, waiting for the ten p.m. shift change indicated on the schedule and slipping the gun locker key into his pocket as he sat down. 

Thirty minutes later a car pulled up behind the shelter and a portly, red faced man got out and waddled over. “Hey, who the hell are you? Where’s Bert?” he said as he approached Jughead. 

“I’m Riley, Doghouse Riley. You’ll be Jim then right? Hell’uva thing about Bert. He’d just come on duty and he keeled right over here in the dirt. Apparently the doc said he was dead before he hit the ground. His heart, they said. And he was a slim fella right?” Jug looked Jim over sympathetically. “They tried to get you in early, called and called apparently but no luck.”

“I need to sleep in the day. I’m here til six a.m. I take the blower off the hook.”

“You might not want to tell ‘em that up there. Anyway they called the agency and got me. Hey pal, I’ve left most of a quarter bottle of rye in the drawer there. I expect it gets cold in the evening. You help yourself big fella. It’s a sweet deal here. I think I’ll try to get taken on regular. I might go up there now and give them my particulars. Do you want to call up to the doorman for me? Tell ‘em I’m on my way? ”

Jim grinned at Jughead and picked up the phone as his new colleague headed up to the main entrance and was let in in by the doorman as per the instructions of the security detail.

Once inside the plant he looked around for doors and windows that he could prop open. It wasn’t long before he found an unsecured room with staff lockers inside. There was a window that someone not built like Jim would be able to squeeze through. He opened it, leaned out and gave his signal, a long hoot. Betty was there, waiting at the corner of the building in the shadows having crept up before the change of shift. He reached out and helped her through the window. She kissed him hard as she got her feet on the floor. “Thanks Mr Jones. You’re all done. See you in eighty four years. I’ll come by and let you touch my boobs from your bath chair.”

“Not a chance Coop. You’re in and I’m in. I guess we’re saving the world and ideally getting rid of DuPont right?”

“This isn’t your fight Jug. You can leave it to me.”

“From what you said this is everyone’s fight. If I don’t do this my children never exist, in a few years time I either die in the bombs you talked about or get poisoned by the sickness. So your fight is my fight. Come on, we’re wasting time.”

She shrugged and reached up into her hair and pulled out a hairpin. Turning to the nearest locker she sprang the door in under a minute. Inside was a lab coat. She passed it to him and sprang the next one. In moments she was pulling on her own white coat. She reached into the pocket and found a pair of spectacles which she balanced on her nose and winked at him, “Do men make passes at girls in glasses Jug?” 

“They do when the item is you Cooper.” He kissed her and squeezed her ass quickly. On the bench nearby he saw a pile of papers which he picked up. He grinned at Betty, “Walk fast, carry papers. Best disguise ever invented.”

She knew the layout of the plant albeit from a distance of eighty years and she guided them along empty, echoing corridors until, without warning, a tannoy blared into life. “All non essential personnel report to transit for evacuation. Repeat non essential personnel report to transit.” The corridor was soon filled with workers in white coats like theirs or in overalls and heavy work boots. Betty pulled him into a doorway.

“It doesn’t make sense Jug. Is he sending them to 2020? If his plan works, the 2020 he’s sending them to won’t exist by the end of tomorrow. If he sets Oppenheimer on the track he plans it will just blink out of existence and these people will go with it.”

“But that’s the best thing for him isn’t it? If he leaves them here and they know something they have eight years to sabotage the scheme. He doesn’t need them anymore. He can kill them like this and it saves having to bury the bodies. Just destroy their timeline right?”

She looked horrified. “You’re right. He’s a monster. Come on.” They followed the crowd of the “non essential” down the corridor and found themselves waiting in a queue. As they watched, workers filed into the chamber. They managed to stay at the back of the line. He became aware of her eyes on him as he leaned against the concrete wall, his hands jammed in the pockets of the lab coat.

“What?” he asked. 

She replied in a low voice so they couldn’t be overheard. “I guess I was just wishing that you were coming with me. I’d like to take you to my condo, postmates some sushi, introduce you to the wonders of movies on demand and microwave popcorn. I’d show you how I can dim all the lights and close the drapes with an app and then I’d let you blow my mind in bed again. I’ll miss you. I’ve never felt like this about a guy before.”

“I have no idea what most of that meant. It sounded good though. You could stay, you know. You could do your saboteur bit and then come home with me. Be my little housewife in a ruffled apron. Raise babies. Bake pies.”

“I really couldn’t. And the forties...” she blew out a whistling breath, “I’m sorry Jug but it’s a tough decade. I mean we all have fascists to fight but I don’t think I could bear to live through it knowing what I know. The German guy is more evil than you can imagine. You won’t come?”

He didn’t get a chance to respond because they were moving forward, entering the chamber now that everyone else was through. He saw a huge glowing maw in the centre of the warehouse sized room. It resembled a whirlpool turned on its side but instead of water it was made of light, pure power. It glowed with a cold, terrifying, implacable energy. The hair on the back of his neck stood and his stomach lurched in its presence. The air in the room seemed to spark and ripple. There was a smell of burning rubber and chlorox everywhere like if someone had been cleaning a crime scene. He couldn’t imagine the courage she must possess to have thrown herself through it, into the unknown.

As they stepped in a stentorian voice called out, “Welcome, Miss Cooper. And you brought a companion. How charming.” Jug peered towards the sound, his eyes adjusting to the brilliance of the device that DuPont stood next to. “I don’t suppose that you know what has become of our mutual friend Mr Weston Wallis do you? I believe that he was planning to make a social call on you yesterday. He hasn’t returned.” Betty looked at Jug meaningfully. She wanted him to take point, draw fire.

“You haven’t been looking in the right place DuPont. He’s taking a little holiday at the shore,” Jughead replied.

“No doubt one from which he won’t return. I don’t take kindly to my associates being killed.”

“That’s funny, given what just happened here. Anyway take that up with Bret. We didn’t ice him. We were being friendly.” Jug weighed his options to tackle DuPont. Unfortunately he was flanked by three heavies with strange looking rifles, huge matt black things that looked like they’d stop an elephant. There was no way he’d get close before they ventilated him.. He carried on with the needling instead. “Did any of the people you just sent through that thing know that you meant to send them to their deaths?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, you Neanderthal.”

“Let’s not call each other names Professor. That’s not how civilised men behave. But you’re not civilised are you. You want to kill millions of innocent people don’t you? Did you know that fellas? I heard someone talk yesterday about being on the wrong side of history. Well I think you picked the wrong side; this guy is the worst mass murderer in history. Worse than Genghis Khan, worse than Napoleon.” He saw one of the goons look over at his buddy nervously.

“You foolish man, I have no idea who you are and I don’t care. I am doing what is necessary to safeguard humanity. Our situation in the future is too perilous for us to survive. The only thing left to us is to start over. That means that the majority of the world’s population will have to be sacrificed but most of them won’t have existed. I’m not killing them. They are simply nothing.”

“That’s you guys that he’s talking about you know.” Jug challenged the guards. “If he brought you through from 2020 you’ll just cease to be. Not that you’ll die, you just won’t have been. Nothing that you or anyone of your generation or your parents’ generation thought or created will ever have existed. Anything you ever loved, simply gone. Every piece of music, every book, every painting, the smile on your wife’s face, the laughter of your child. He’s going to erase them all from the face of the earth. Dead and no one to remember that you ever were. And if you’re from now, like me, well we get to be blown to bits by his bombs or die horribly of the after effects. I’m not signing up boys, not for me and not for mine. Are you?”

DuPont turned to look at his henchmen, turning back to Jughead with a smile. “They simply don’t care, do they? Are you surprised? This is why we have to start again. Humanity has lost its way and here is your proof.” What he couldn’t see is that when he spoke the heavies were still exchanging looks between themselves. DuPont was underestimating the sentimentality of the working stiff. Jug saw his moment and launched himself towards DuPont. The guys with the guns were too slow to respond and he’d got hands on the scientist’s lapels before they began to pull him off, their rifles unwieldy at close quarters. One of them landed a punch to the same eye that was already painted with purple bruises and he replied in kind, releasing his grip on DuPont who took several shocked steps backwards, straightening his suit.

“You don’t imagine that you are going to best me with an attack like that do you? Really you’re too stupid.”

“Not that stupid Professor,” Betty said stepping out from the shadows behind him and pressing her .22 to his temple. The heavies wheeled round and Jug ran to place himself between them and her, pulling his iron at the same time. 

“OK fellas. This guy wants to make you into his palookas. All we’re planning on is sending him through the lightshow there, same as you saw all the other folks do. You collect your pay, no-one gets hurt, we all get to go home to sleep tonight either here or through there. If you want to cut up rough then you’ll for sure kill me, maybe the girl too but I’ll take out one or more of you first and she’ll paint the walls with that expensive professor brain. Are any of you ready to die for this piece of dirt after hearing what he thinks of you?” The hired guns looked at each other.

“Shoot him you fools, shoot both of them. Quickly. What’s wrong with you? How stupid can you be?” screamed DuPont. Betty jabbed him hard with the muzzle of her gun and walked him back towards the vortex. 

“Charles?” She yelled into the centre of the whirling abyss. “Charles are you there?”

“Betty, is that you?” A disembodied voice floated through from the future, distorted but intelligible. DuPont’s face was a mask of confusion and disbelief.

“I’m sending you DuPont. Get ready. He’s wounded.” DuPont looked at her.

“I’m not…” and she shot him in the leg and shoved him backwards into the centre of the device. He screamed in anger and agony and fell into a maelstrom, twisting forward into a destiny that he had not chosen.

“Charles,” she yelled again. "Did you get the information I needed about Jones?” There was a pause. Jug still had a gun on the hired guys and couldn’t get nearer to listen so he gestured to them with his gun to put down their weapons and beat it. “Yes, goddamn it, it’s for operational purposes,” she screamed.

As he stepped forward he heard “The bridges at Arnhem,” and a piece of paper floated through and landed at his feet. He bent to pick it up, looking at Betty uncertainly. It was a photograph labelled Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery. The headstone in the picture read:  


> Forsythe Pendleton Jones  
>  Medal of honour  
>  1st SGT US Army  
>  Oct 2 1908  
>  Killed in action  
>  Sept 20th 1944.

She stared at him, her eyes huge and filled with tears. “Come with me Jug. Come and be safe with me. It doesn’t have to end like that.” She stepped towards him, her arms around him as if she could never let go. He hadn’t known what he was going to do until he saw the photograph but now he did.

“They give me the medal of honour Betts. I have to be there to do whatever the hell it is I do. You can’t run away from your fight and I can’t run away from mine. You wouldn’t want me if I could.”

“Jug, you’ll die.”

“We all die Betty. It’s how that really matters. Go, you have to go. I love you.” He unwrapped her arms from his neck and held her hands in his, stepping forward to kiss her before pushing her firmly backwards into the chasm of endless time and space.

“I love you too you dumb lunk. Forever.” And she was falling back through the vortex into a future that he would try to create for her.

A few years later when the men in the unit asked Sergeant Jones if he had a wife waiting for him back home, he would say that he had a girl once but that he lost her and he wouldn’t live long enough to forget her.

__________________________________________

“TEN SECONDS” a mechanical voice yelled from a whirl of lights behind her.

The smell of cordite was thick in the air, smoke making her eyes stream with tears, men screamed in agony, someone calling out for his mother. Her body armour was heavy and it was impossible to run. The coordinates were a best guess and she couldn’t see through the fucking smoke. They’d never let her try again if she didn’t find him. If she couldn’t, she decided that she would stay here, on this blasted battlefield until she found his body and she would never leave it. She’d keen and wail and tear her clothes as women had done over fallen warriors since time began. She’d die here with him.

She was scared. Her heart pounded in her rib cage like the pistons of an old combustion engine. She stood on a battlefield where the man she loved was about to be shot in a spurt of blood and bone and brain by a stray round as he rescued the last of four comrades in the face of enemy fire and so her fear was understandable but that wasn’t all that frightened her. She didn’t know if he would still want her, would be glad she had come for him. He hadn’t seen her for eight years perhaps he’d forgotten her, moved on, perhaps there was another woman. She hadn’t seen him for six and she had completely failed to move on, hadn’t even been able to try. Once she had stepped through the time portal in 2020 she had been taken for debriefing. She had testified to closed senate hearings about the technology that DuPont had invented and about his schemes as well as her investigations. The device was under lock and key but she knew where the bodies were buried, specifically DuPont’s body, metaphorically buried for the rest of his natural life in an ultra max high security prison for one, deep in the bowels of Langley. She had nagged and bullied and blackmailed Charles for years to let her carry out this top secret black op to extract Forsythe Pendleton Jones until he agreed, on his own authority. He had insisted on some non negotiable conditions. She was to spend no more than thirty seconds “in country,” she wouldn’t engage with anyone other than the soon to be late First Sergeant Jones, she could never speak of it to anyone on her return, not ever, and she and Jones would leave the United States, settle abroad, never come back. The reward of a grateful nation for their service. She didn’t even have to think about it. She agreed with tears in her eyes. But would he come?

Then, suddenly, he was there, emerging from the smoke like a ghost, blood on his tunic, a cut across his cheekbone. He was so thin, the circles under his eyes like bruises. He dropped the wounded soldier he had been carrying across his shoulders and screamed “Medic. Medic!” A few dozen yards away an answering call, 

“Yes sarge. Coming.”

She stepped forward into his line of sight. He stared at her, incomprehension on his face, in his beautiful eyes. “It’s now is it? I’m dead? I was worried that it’d hurt but this is good.” 

“SIX SECONDS”

There was no time to discuss it, to persuade him, to explain. She would decide for him, for them. “No Jug, you aren’t dead. But you will be in five seconds unless you come with me. Come on, you’re going to live.” Dragging him by the wrist, brooking no opposition, she took a step back, pulling him into her arms, falling through the vortex into the future, into their future if he’d accept it.

Afterwards Jughead always joked to her that never really knew for certain if he hadn’t actually died in battle at Arnhem. He said that heaven couldn’t improve on his life. Then he’d count his blessings, a beautiful wife who he said loved him more completely than he had any right to be loved even as she shook her head and laughed at that idea, an ocean to swim in, good coffee, a typewriter that required only the lightest of touches on the keys, people who’d buy non fiction accounts of his old cases as noir thrillers, a decent income that no one got beaten up to earn, a beach, a grill, good books, movies that they could choose at the press of a button. When it got even better he just smiled and said “Heaven,” to her everyday.

She’d been terrified that he would die. He’d passed out in the vortex, he was malnourished and the stress of time travel on top of battle fatigue and exhaustion seemed to have wiped him out completely. When he woke up, in a hospital bed surrounded by strange pulsing noises and blinking lights, she’d been there, waiting, worrying. He tried to talk, only managing a croak, but she heard and she was out of her chair, sitting on the side of the bed, holding his hand and weeping. “Is it Ok Jug? Are you mad? There was no time. I’m sorry if it was the wrong call.”

“Are you apologising for saving my life Cooper?” he whispered. “It’s OK, I’ll forgive you for the price of a kiss.”

Now, in the home they’d made together, he stirred as she lay next to him, watching him sleep, marvelling at him. He opened a sapphire eye and a grin twitched the corner of his mouth. “Buenos días mi amor,”

“Te deseo,” she whispered and took him in her hand, kissing his neck and his shoulder.

“Oh that’s good,” he moaned as she stroked him. 

“En español por favor, we’re in Mexico now,” she teased, and at that moment a tiny yellow haired scamp ran screaming into the room and leapt onto the bed yelling “Papa! Papa!”.

“Monroe cállate, ssh,” he said, stroking back his son’s hair. “You’ll wake the little ones, las niñas.”

“Still heaven?” she asked with a smile.

“Absolutely,” he grinned. He picked up his boy saying “Come on angel, let’s take a swim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The resource Twists, Slugs and Roscoes: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang at https://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html was invaluable when I was writing this story. There are some lines of dialogue that I have given to Betty that come from The Big Sleep, notably "I wondered if I'd like it...it's even better when you help," and "I liked it...I'd like more." I figured that maybe Betty knew the film and channelled Bacall when she found herself with a real life shamus.

**Author's Note:**

> And an agent crests the shadows and I head in her direction  
> All roads lead toward the same blocked intersection  
> I am coming home to you  
> With my own blood in my mouth  
> And I am coming home to you  
> If it's the last thing that I do


End file.
